“Let them eat cake”**
the old man in the hat
Our past always come back to haunt us. Some modern theories of our current penchant for consuming too many calories claim that this need to overeat is based on our genetic, hunter gatherer past, prior to the establishment of farming communities. Feast or famine. When times are good, sock it away.
In a similar fashion, the accumulation and concentration of monetary wealth speaks to this same fear of not having enough. The National Post reported that by lunch time on January 2, 2014, the top Canadian CEO’s had earned an amount of money that represents an average full year income for everyone else. Not bad work if you can find it.
Now I do not begrudge these men and women their chance of becoming rich. Who does not like to have “financial security”? Everyone enjoys a full belly, and a full bank account!
However, this income represents 171 times the average Canadian income. 171.
These CEO’s represent the elite of Canadian business. They are the people that governments consult. These are the people that determine whether your community prospers or dies.
According the Conference Board of Canada, Canada rates a “C” in the level of income equality according to their rating scheme (“A” being better ie less income inequality, with the US at a “D”), reaching a low in 1989 and steadily increasing to early 2000, and holding relatively constant since that period.
There may be many causes for this rise in inequality, but one thing is certain, Government policy has been a contributing factor.
Note that in Canada, both provincially and federally, there has been a decline in marginal tax rates. While nobody wants to pay more taxes that they have too, these tax reductions have benefited high income individuals more than low income individuals. The reduction in the HST from 15% to 13% was certainly a nice savings for those buying BMW’s! The net result of these tax decreases has been to increase the bank accounts of the wealthy at the expense of funding social programs. Simple as that. That is a choice our governments made on our collective behalf? The 99%?
Given the government’s immense power to change many aspects of our life, I am forever amazed at how few people are politically involved. You can be sure that the CEO earning 7 million a year lobbies governments to reduce their taxes even more, to allow them to import foreign workers who are paid at a lower pay scale than Canadians, and to push free trade to enable domestic jobs to disappear to low wage jurisdictions.
If you do not like the way things are, tell your MP and VOTE!
Further reading:
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake
http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-body/fat-costs/#page=4
Top Canadian CEOs have already earned what it will take most workers a year to make
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/details/society/income-inequality.aspx
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/rbc-chief-listening-after-foreign-worker-controversy-1.1333415
mike.allen@parl.gc.ca
